


the best laid plans

by pocoloki



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Heist, Implied/Referenced Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 19:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17710019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocoloki/pseuds/pocoloki
Summary: After months of preparation, the diamond heist of the century is finally underway. Legendary mastermind Victor Nikiforov and infamous catburglar Katsuki Yuuri are in the final stages of their operation to steal the famed Ocean's Eye, but when things start to unravel at a crucial moment, matters of the heart conflict with the successful completion of their mission.After all, there are some things you just can't plan for.(For WeWriteVictuuri's Weekly Prompt: "I never planned on falling for you.")





	the best laid plans

Yuuri's lungs burn as he runs, feet pounding against the metal floor, heart pounding against his ribs. The dark hallway illuminates around him, flashing red intermittently, accompanied by a ceaseless, blaring alarm. 

 

The lights and sirens should be disorienting but he feels no confusion, only adrenaline pumping through his veins. After months of poring over schematics and blueprints, he knows the underbelly of this plane like the back of his own hand. They’ve run through this a thousand times, planned for every variable… even despite Cao Bin’s betrayal, he knows they can still pull this off. 

 

Another red flash illuminates the hallway, and Yuuri can see it before him - the cargo hold door. He speeds up, and hears the footsteps behind him speed up too - Victor, hot on his heels, a comforting presence despite the situation. As long as Victor is here, they can get out of this. 

 

He slips his stolen keycard out of his sleeve as he approaches the hold door, a pang of relief flooding him as the light on the lock turns green, allowing him access. 

 

He sprints across the threshold and Victor follows, slamming the hold door shut behind him and tossing something slim and metallic in Yuuri's direction before proceeding to the outer hold door. 

 

Upon examination, Yuuri recognizes the object in his hand as one of Sara's electromagnetic locks. It won't keep Rozanov's people out forever, but it will buy them time - enough time, Yuuri hopes, for Victor to come up with a plan to get them out of here. 

 

He presses the device against the space between the door and the wall and switches it on, holding it in place until the blue indicator illuminates. Now, nothing short of an equally powerful electromagnet will open it. 

 

“So,” he says conversationally, stepping back as the door in front of him takes its first savage hit from the guards. “What's the plan?” 

 

“Only one way out from here,” Victor murmurs, still busy with the latch for the external door. “We're gonna have to jump.” 

 

Yuuri's hand flies immediately to his back, where Sara's pocket chute sits snugly clipped on to his jacket, no bigger than a stick of gum, but ready to unfold into a fully functional parachute at the click of a button and- 

 

Wait. Wait, this isn't right. Yuuri’s heart skips a beat, his fingers searching along the back of his jacket, but finding no contact with the device. This can’t be right. He swore he'd clipped it on the moment they boarded the jet. It should be there, it should still be there, unless-

 

Unless.

 

_ Oh, god. _

 

“Victor.” His voice is remarkably calm to his own ears, as though his vocal cords haven’t yet caught up with his frantically pounding heart. 

 

“Mmm?” Victor barely even responds, engrossed in the door latch. 

 

“My chute, it's… it's gone.” 

 

Victor’s head snaps up abruptly. “What?” 

 

“I must have lost it in the fight.” 

 

He remembers now. The brief tussle with Cao Bin in Rozanov’s safe room. The way he had clawed at Yuuri’s back those few alarming seconds when he had him pinned, before Victor had entered the fray to save him. He’d been too preoccupied with staying alive at the moment to even think about the traitor’s intent, but now, it all becomes clear. 

 

It hadn't been an act of blind rage after all, but a conscious effort to rob Yuuri of his only way off Rozanov's jet. In taking it, he has effectively stranded him here, left to their mark’s mercy.

 

Victor seems to have realized it too, looking truly alarmed for the first time. He curses under his breath, runs a hand through his hair, and then curses again, abandoning the door latch and pacing back and forth across the hold.

 

Dread settles like a lead weight in Yuuri's stomach. He’s never seen Victor like this, so shaken, so  unsure . The man exudes an aura of confidence, always. For him to be so openly worried… they might really be out of options. 

 

“Victor?” 

 

He stops pacing, fixing Yuuri with a steady gaze. His face is unreadable, but Yuuri thinks he can see something of a storm behind his eyes. It makes him uneasy. 

 

“Take this,” he says shortly, tossing Yuuri another electromagnetic lock. “We’re going to need some more time.” 

 

Yuuri complies without question, turning back towards the door and placing the second lock beneath the first. His hands shake as he engages the device, and he puts all his effort into stilling them. He already knows what needs to happen. His chute is gone; there’s no way out for him now. The best he can do at this point is to put on a brave face. 

 

Victor does not seem quite as stoic when Yuuri turns back around. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Victor looked almost distraught at the prospect of continuing the job without him, paralyzed by doubt and fear.  

 

“Victor,” Yuuri says steadily. “You know you're going to have to leave-”

 

“No!” He snaps, running a hand distractedly through his hair. “No, I'm not. I won't leave you here.” 

 

There's a barely-there catch in his voice. Something almost tender, almost pleading, that takes Yuuri's breath away. But he doesn't have time to unpack those feelings, not now, so he swallows them down and presses on.

 

“You have to,” he insists. “I've done my part., I'm expendable, you don't need me to finish the-”

 

“Stop talking like that, Yuuri!” 

 

“Why should I?” Yuuri snaps, his own stubborn streak taking hold. “Victor, you have to think rationally about this. You have the Eye. Why not just let them take me? If it matters that much to you, just break me out of prison when the job is done. That should be child’s play for you.” 

 

“Ivan is not the sort of man to bother with prisons,” Victor says heavily. “Not the type to kill straight away either. He's not so merciful.”

 

It isn't like the revelation is a surprise. Rozanov is notoriously ruthless, you don't get to be the head of a multinational crime syndicate by showing mercy to your enemies. Still, the implication of what is about to happen to him fills Yuuri with a cold, cloying dread. 

 

“It's okay,” Yuuri says again, trying desperately to keep his voice from shaking. “You're Victor Nikiforov. You plan for everything, you can think of a way to get me out.”

 

“You're wrong, Yuuri.” His voice is suddenly soft, his eyes unbearably sad. “I don't plan for everything. We wouldn't be here if that were the case. I never planned on the possibility of a mole. I never planned on Cao Bin being Ivan’s man all along. I never planned on… on falling for you.” 

 

The sudden admission stops Yuuri’s frantically-pounding heart for a moment, steals the breath from his lungs. 

 

“You,” he stammers, breaths coming again now in short, shocked bursts. “You never... Victor,  _ what _ ?” 

 

“I didn’t mean to,” he says with a sad chuckle. “I promise. And this would have been so much easier if I hadn’t but…” He cuts off with a hopeless shrug. “I guess we can’t help who we fall in love with.”

 

“Victor, are you… are you  _ serious _ ?” 

 

He nods, looking directly into Yuuri’s eyes. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. I love you, Yuuri Katsuki.” 

 

Yuuri's brain is in full panic mode, trying to make sense of this revelation. Joy, shock, relief, suspicion, and a deep, terrible sadness flow through him in quick succession. 

 

Victor loves him -  _ Victor loves him! -  _ and all those stolen moments from the past eight months fall into place. The hours spent alone together in that small, dark bunker, planning every detail of the heist. The dance they had shared at the museum gala. The kiss during those tense moments when they'd nearly been discovered. Those sparks hadn't been just wishful thinking on Yuuri's part.

 

But why wait until now to tell him? Now, when the only thing in Yuuri's future is a slow and painful death at their mark's hands? 

 

Comfort, he supposes. Kindness. And for a moment, the thought strikes him that Victor may be lying, telling him what he wants to hear as an act of compassion, as something to hold onto in his last, painful days. 

 

But Victor’s gaze holds nothing but honesty. Here, in this dark, cold cargo hold, Yuuri can see him. Really see  _ him.  _ Not Aria, living legend, the Man of a Thousand Masks. Not Victor Nikiforov, notorious con-man. Just Victor. Open and honest and vulnerable and… scared.

 

It's the fear in Victor's eyes more than anything that finally prompts Yuuri to break his stunned silence. 

 

He isn’t sure what he wants to say - whether he wants to yell at Victor for telling him this now, when it’s too late for them, whether he wants to thank him for the kindness, whether he wants to deny his own feelings, to lie through his teeth and claim he doesn’t feel the same, to break Victor’s heart so he doesn’t mourn for Yuuri when he’s gone. A million different phrases bubble up, but in the end, only one makes it out. 

 

Victor is standing before him, open and honest and vulnerable, laying himself and his heart bare in their final moments together. Yuuri owes him the same, at the very least.  

 

“I love you, too.” He says, sounding so much weaker and more afraid than he wants to “I’ve always loved you, from the very beginning. I… god, Victor, I wish we could have had more time.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Yuuri,” Victor whispers, voice rough, then pulls him by the front of his shirt into a deep, searing kiss. 

 

It’s as if the world falls away for a moment. The roar of the jet engine all around them, the relentless pounding of Rozanov’s security force at the door, the heavy sense of impending doom, the terror of what’s to come… it all melts away into nothingness, leaving only him and Victor and the frantic tandem beating of their breaking hearts. 

 

And it’s different from the adrenaline-fuelled kiss at the gala. It had been so fast that night, an act of desperation to draw attention away from themselves, to avoid danger. Now, instead of speeding by, time seems to slow down, to stop, as if fate is granting the two of them a fraction of all the years they could have spent together, compressed into this one moment before they’re separated forever. They clutch at each other with a different sort of desperation this time, no longer driven by panic but by a fierce desire, a need to communicate everything they will never have the chance to say in the limited time they have left. 

 

The moment stretches on forever, but still ends too painfully, cruelly soon. 

 

When they finally break apart, Yuuri is dazed. He blinks back tears and clutches at Victor’s shoulders, resting their foreheads together as they catch their breath. 

 

“You asked me to have faith in you,” Victor whispers after a moment. “More faith than you do in yourself.” 

 

Yuuri nods, confused. Why is he bringing that argument up now, of all times? 

 

“I have faith in you, Yuuri.” He continues, leaning in to pull Yuuri into a tight hug. It’s only when Yuuri hugs back that he notices Victor is shaking.“I know you can do this.” 

 

Do what? Hold up under torture? Endure long enough for Victor and the rest of the team to sell the Eye and get to safety? He'll do his best, but given Rozanov's ruthless tendencies, he thinks Victor might be asking too much of him. 

 

Over Victor’s shoulder, he sees the first electromagnet fall away from the door, and he draws in a trembling breath, trying to prepare himself for whatever happens next. At his back, he feels a strange pressure, and then a light pinch, as if something is latching on to his clothes…

 

A familiar beep sounds and Yuuri’s blood turns to ice. 

 

The parachute. Victor’s parachute. It must be, Sara had only given them one each, which means that...

 

“Victor-” Yuuri breathes, an entirely new type of terror rising in his throat as he realizes what is about to happen. 

 

The device beeps again and straps deploy, winding themselves automatically around Yuuri’s chest to form a harness. Yuuri claws at the straps, trying in vain to undo them, to take off the chute, put it back on Victor where it belongs because  _ he doesn't want this _ , he doesn't want escape and safety, not like this, not if it means leaving Victor here in his place.

 

In his panic, he just barely hears the external hold door opening behind him. Just barely feels the change in pressure, the wind tearing at his clothes. Just barely sees anything but Victor, so regretful, so resolved. 

 

He wants to beg him, to plead with everything he has,  _ don't do this. Please don't do this, not for me, I'm not worth it, Victor  _ please…

 

But he never gets the chance.

 

“I’m sorry,” Victor says again, tucking something into Yuuri’s palm and pressing his fingers closed around it. “I love you.” 

 

“Victor, _ no- _ !”

 

And then Victor’s hands are on Yuuri’s shoulders, shoving him back, hard, and his protests are lost to the gusting wind as he stumbles backward out of the open exterior door, into empty space. The last thing he sees as the world tilts around him is a flood of armed guards pouring into the cargo hold, overwhelming Victor-

 

-And then there is nothing but blue - the sky, the sea, tumbling around in an indistinct blur as he free-falls. He thinks he might be screaming Victor’s name but the wind takes the sound faster than he can make it. It’s all he can do to keep his grip on whatever Victor tucked into his hand as he plummets, shock and fear and the brutal wind stealing the very breath from his lungs. 

 

Then the chute deploys, jerking Yuuri’s plummeting body back as his descent suddenly slows, allowing him a second to catch his breath and orient himself. The sea glitters below him, a deep, sparkling blue, and above him… he twists as far as the harness on his chute will allow him, trying to catch a glimpse of the sky above.

 

A small part of him hopes against all odds that he’ll see Victor up there with a chute of his own, floating gently down to the ocean below, to safety. That giving Yuuri his parachute had been part of another cunning plan, rather than a desperate act of sacrifice, allowing himself to be captured by Rozanov’s people in Yuuri’s place. But the sky above him is empty, nothing but a few scattered white clouds and Rozanov’s rapidly retreating jet to be seen. 

 

As he watches, the exterior cargo hold door slowly shuts, sealing Victor in with his enemy. 

 

_ Ivan is not the sort of man to bother with prisons, _ Victor’s voice echoes in his mind.  _ Not the type to kill straight away either. He's not so merciful. _

 

If there is a benefit to his current situation, alone, slowly drifting downwards, it’s that there’s no one around to see him sobbing like a child as he descends. With nothing but the sky above him and the open waters of the bay beneath him, he allows himself to break down, just for a few moments. Allows himself to process everything that has happened - his own brush with a painful death, Victor’s confession, Victor’s love, Victor’s sacrifice. Everything that could have been, that had been stolen from them before it even had a chance to begin. Yuuri lets himself mourn it all as he drifts downward, lets himself sob out his heartbreak and scream his frustration to the uncaring wind. 

 

By the time his tears dry, he is mere dozens of feet away from the surface of the water, and he realizes too late that he has no idea where the drop point is where they were supposed to land to meet up with Mila and Phichit. 

 

He crashes down into the water, momentarily panicking as a wave crashes over his head, submerging him. He can feel his shoes filling with water, weighing him down, and he desperately tries to kick them, off, struggling to avoid getting tangled in the strings from the chute on his back. Before he has time to lose his breath, though, the device on his back detaches automatically from the parachute, freeing him, and small air pouches around the harness deploy with a pneumatic hiss, transforming it into a flotation device that draws him rapidly back up to the surface. 

 

The makeshift lifejacket keeps him at the surface, bobbing above the waves as he coughs and sputters the small amount of seawater he had accidentally swallowed in his shock. Once his breathing is back under control, he looks up, searching frantically for any sign of Ivan’s plane. 

 

His heart clenches as he sees it, just a small white speck, thousands of feet above him, slowly swallowed by the bright expanse of blue sky. 

 

_ Where are they taking you, Victor? What are they going to do to you?  _

 

He’s pulled out of his thoughts by the buzz of a motor drawing near. 

 

A sleek white speedboat is headed towards him, cutting gracefully through the waves. He spots Mila at the helm, her fiery red hair blowing around her face in the salty breeze. She grins and waves when she catches sight of him, expertly pulling the boat up next to him and cutting the engine. 

 

“Need a lift?” She asks, pushing her sunglasses up and shooting him a playful wink. 

 

Yuuri can’t muster the energy to reply, but swims around to the back of the boat, keeping a firm grip on the object in his hand. Phichit is waiting for him there, offering him a towel to dry off with and an earpiece linked to their team’s communication channel as he climbs aboard. 

 

“Wait a second…” Mila says, her grin disappearing as the scans the waves around them. “Where’s Victor?” 

 

Yuuri suddenly finds it difficult to speak around the lump in his throat. “He… he didn’t make it out.”

 

Her gaze snaps back to him, shocked.  _ “What?” _

 

“He gave himself up so I could get away.” 

 

“That… doesn’t sound like Victor.” Phichit says shrewdly. 

 

“No, that sounds exactly like Victor.” Yurio’s voice pipes up over the comms channel. 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“He  _ conveniently disappears _ right after getting his hands on the Eye? Come on, this is textbook stuff. He plans this little ‘betrayal’ with Cao Bin and the two of them make off with the diamond. There’s a bigger cut between two than there is between eight.” 

 

Silence falls over the comms channel, and Yuuri can’t see most of their team, but he can practically hear the doubt flitting through their minds. It’s only natural to assume double-crossing would happen amidst a group of professional criminals and con-artists, and it’s not like Yuuri wouldn’t have assumed the same of Victor once upon a time. Still, in light of everything that has happened, it stings to see how easily the rest of their team would doubt their leader. 

 

He says nothing in response to the grumbling and soft curses in his earpiece, just opens his hand, revealing the object that Victor had tucked into it before pushing him out of the cargo hold. 

 

A small, airtight black box, and inside… 

 

“Holy shit.” Phichit breathes. “Hold on, can I…?”

 

Yuuri nods and holds the Eye out, and Phichit takes it, removing a magnifying glass from his jacket pocket. He pores over the jewel for several minutes, taking out a penlight to shine it through the gem, examining every facet minutely. 

 

By the time he removes the eyeglass, he looks almost dazed, setting the gemstone back in the box and staring at it with wide eyes. 

 

“Oh my god,” he breathes. “This is… it’s the real deal. It’s the Eye.” 

 

Exclamations of surprise and joy come over the comms channel. 

 

“So he really gave himself up?” Christophe muses amidst the celebrations, almost unconsciously. “It’s not like him to sacrifice himself to protect someone else. I wonder why he’d do that…” 

 

Yuuri feels Phichit and Mila’s eyes burning into him, hears Victor’s soft _ I love you _ echoing in his ears. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes, and he grits his jaw to hold them at bay. 

 

A heavy silence falls over the comms channel, until Mila breaks it. “So… what now?” 

 

He knows she isn’t talking about the Eye. 

 

“Now we get him back.” Yuuri surprises even himself with the answer. 

 

“What, from Ivan? That’s insane.” Christophe scoffs. “We don’t even know where he’s headed. It could be anywhere in the world.”

 

“Actually, it might not be that hard.” Sara pipes up. “As long as we’re looking for the right person.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I, uh, might have planted a tracker on Victor. On the off chance he did try to make off with the Eye himself...” She trails off sheepishly, guilt audible. “But we can use it to our advantage!”

 

“Okay, so say we can track Rozanov down. What, are we supposed to just waltz right in and ask for the old man back? For all we know, he might be dead already!” 

 

“He’s alive,” Yuuri says, voice low and dark. “He said it himself, Rozanov wouldn’t kill him, not straight away.”  

 

“He’s right,” Christophe adds. “Ivan is very much the type to play with his food before he eats it. And considering his past with Victor...” 

 

Yuuri’s stomach churns at the implication. He had been terrified at the prospect of being on the receiving end of Rozanov’s brutal methods, and he was all but a stranger to the crime lord. Victor is someone Rozanov actively hates, has considered a thorn in his side since their early days of petty crime together had ended in bloodshed and betrayal. The thought of him trapped at that monster’s mercy after years of hatred and resentment… Yuuri can’t bear it. 

 

Thankfully, Phichit’s voice cuts off that train of thought before it has a chance to lead him to a full-fledged panic. “Even if he is still alive, Rozanov’s hideouts would be heavily fortified. Armed guards, state-of-the-art security system, god knows what else! How are we supposed to get past all that without Victor?” 

 

He’s right. Even Victor, the most brilliant criminal mastermind of his time, had taken months of planning to go up against Rozanov. What hope does Yuuri have, what hope do any of them have, of slipping his hated rival out from under his nose before he gets bored and kills him? 

 

But he has to try. Even though he’s just a dime-a-dozen catburglar, he has to try for Victor’s sake. Victor, who had given himself over to suffer in Yuuri’s place. Victor, who trusts him. Victor, who loves him. Victor, who believes in him. 

 

_ I have faith in you, Yuuri. I know you can do this.  _

 

In the panic and confusion of those last moments in the cargo hold, Victor’s words had made no sense. Now, it’s clear as day. He wouldn’t have given himself over if he didn’t believe that Yuuri could get him back. 

 

Victor is counting on him. And there’s no way that Yuuri will let him down. 

 

“Don’t worry,” Yuuri says, staring out at the faint dot of the distant plane.  _ Hold on, Victor. We’re coming for you. _ “I have a plan.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, only 6 months late! My entry for the WWV weekly prompt from like, August. Oops. 
> 
> Buuuut, even though I was super late finishing this, I likely wouldn't have finished it at all if it weren't for the lovely Rina, Addy, Chrome, and all the other amazing folks in the WWV server. Y'all are the actual literal best and I love you all more than I can possibly say. <3
> 
> Also, obligatory [tungle](http://sweet-vitya.tumblr.com/) link if you want to come and scream.


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